Page 39 of The Silversmith

“Well,” Gemma sighed, “there’s nothing more refreshing than a nice, proper fuck.”

Ezra choked on water and suddenly found the view of his feet wildly interesting. Caz—the last to return to the group—snorted. Finn ran a hand through his neat black hair and cringed.

And a terrifying growl from behind me burrowed beneath my skin and lifted every hair on my body to attention.

Stiff with alarm, I spun toward the source of the noise.

There Gavin stood, his knife in his left hand, and his right… wet and red with his own blood. Two halves of a fresh apple lay on the ground before him. It took only a moment to realize what he had done—cut straight through the fruit with enough force to put a gash in his own palm. But that bloodied hand just dangled at his side, the least of his concerns as his deep-brown eyes burned with inhuman fury. His mouth, his nose curled up into a nasty snarl. He was predatory. Terrifying.

And that, I knew, was the look of a killer.

Pointed right at Gemma.

“I knew it,” she mumbled, a smug grin on her face, arms tucked behind her head as she eased her back against the large oak tree that sheltered us.

I turned back to Gavin, but he had already disappeared.

“Was that necessary?” I snapped, facing Gemma again.

“Why, Ary?” Gemma scoffed, waving a hand in the direction he’d gone. “Why should he care who you fuck?”

That was a good question. One I didn’t have the answer to.

But I could try to get one.

So I turned to follow him.

“Ary, where are you going?” Gemma groaned.

“To make sure he’s okay.”

Caz threw his head back and cackled while the others watched me in skeptical silence. The man had made it very clear that his top priority was to care for me. To teach me. To protect me. To make sure I was okay.

How could they expect me to do anything other than try to return the favor?

“Someone has to,” I muttered under my breath, and followed him.

It took only a moment to find him. He did himself no favors with the swift, heavy sound of his footsteps dominating the rocky ground beneath his pacing. His menacing, rippling shoulders and torso threatened to split through the long-sleeve shirt he wore.

All black today, perhaps to match his attitude.

“Are you okay?”

He laughed humorlessly, shaking his head. “That friend of yours really needs to learn to keep her damn mouth shut.”

I lifted my eyebrows. “I don’t think you have the right to decide that for her, but even so, she was just trying to get a rise out of you.”

His fists clenched and unclenched—the bloody one too—and it looked like he was itching to… hit something.

“I’m surprised how well it’s working. What’s gotten into you?”

He ran an enormous hand—the clean one—through his dark hair. And for the first time—perhaps since he’d found me that day in the barn—he looked flustered. “Tell me you’re not going to.”

“Not going to what?” I asked carefully.

“You…” His chest heaved with heavy, frantic breaths, clearly irritated with having to explain himself. “You deserve infinitely more than a quick fuck, Ella.”

My lips parted in shock. “I… what?”